As much as I love to trackback my own posts, I currently have trackbacked my own posts more than anyone else, I am pleased to let everyone know (all 283 of you currently) that the award has been accepted!
We, and by “we” I mean “I,” welcome you to the club. It’s not so exclusive but you are indeed the first to be officially recognized. The forum troll standing over in the corner might be next or maybe the guy who hasn’t realized that repetitive spam can get you auto-kicked from IRC. I haven’t decided yet.
Until then, the membership dues amount to $25 a year and I will be expecting yours soon.
Cash or credit? No checks admitted here. We take Visa.

—

As for bragging about my traffic, I believe this sums it up.

Give me a case to put my visage in:
A visor for a visor! what care I
What curious eye doth quote deformities?
Here are the beetle brows shall blush for me.
~Mercutio in Romeo & Julietfrom this site

If I poke fun at myself first, you are only playing off of what I’ve already said.
But I do believe you may have yourself a new reader. I trust I won’t be disappointed by posts less entertaining than the one about the award?

Let me start off by saying I don’t even read the Scobleizer on a semi-normal basis. I just came across this post after reading earlier today about a harassed blogger.
I’m going to throw out all sensitivity here. This is beyond ridiculous.
A blogger named Kathy Sierra started receiving comments on her blog that are undoubtedly threatening in nature.

Comment from:

Name: siftee
Email: siftee@yahoo.com
IP: 62.37.152.243
Comment:

fuck off you boring slut… i hope someone slits your throat and cums down your gob

Who here hasn’t seen worse on a message board? Sorry, had to point that out. I don’t understand how this wasn’t just deleted like the trash it and it’s creator are and forgotten. Yes, as Kathy points out the “law is clear–to encourage or suggest someone’s death is just as illegal as claiming you intend to do it yourself,” but honestly to take something like this seriously is laughable. To throw out another example, listen to what people in stadiums yell out to baseball players. Ever see snipers in the stands?
Didn’t think so.
The next threat came from a picture and a person saying “the only thing Kathy has to offer me is [a] noose in her neck size.” This seems to me to be more of a Why-don’t-you-just-kill-yourself insult.
Finally, the most laughable of all of these is a very poor Photoshop job.

That pushed you over the edge, Kathy? What the hell is it? Suffocation by underwear or skinned ripped off? Honestly my blind eyes can’t tell.

What’s to be scared of? A Photoshopped picture? An anonymous comment on a public blog?
Your pictures are put on the Internet by even you I would assume. You can’t think everybody is going to play nice. As for skipping out on your keynotes, I wish I could get out of work because somebody was mean to me on the Internet. But if you want to play into their game, go ahead and hide. They are laughing all the way to their next post.

Next, there is Mr. WordPress-Number-One-Stats Scoble. (Yea, I wish I had his traffic numbers. So do you. Shut up.)
You aren’t blogging for a week? For what purpose? I don’t read your blog but apparently a lot of other people do. Letting them shut you up because they included your name too? Well then, you lose. They win.
They obviously don’t like what you say so you not saying anything is the best victory they could have. Well after the fact that their childish games were acknowledged. That’s all they want. Attention.
Mommy was too busy fighting with daddy…yadda yadda yadda.

Finally, what actually got me to post this response.

The Internet culture is really disgusting.

The Internet mirrors real life. People who are jerks offline are jerks online and vice versa. Since I assume you’ve been a geek most of your life I would have thought you’d have known this by being bullied as a child. Some people never grow out of bullying because for some people they have people like you to roll over for them.
That’s what you are doing. Playing dead. Ironic as they used death threats, huh?
I point that out in case you thought you were playing the Knight in Shining Armor.

It’s this culture of attacking women that has especially got to stop. I really don’t care if you attack me. I take those attacks in stride. But, whenever I post a video of a female technologist there invariably are snide remarks about body parts and other things that simply wouldn’t happen if the interviewee were a man.

It makes me realize just how ascerbic this industry and culture are toward women. This just makes me ill.

You’ve made a point. What do you do next? Nothing. You point that that you are doing nothing for a week.
You aren’t the Knight on the horse you’re the drunk preaching at the bar. Sad truth.

Now, stand up. All bloggers stand up. All blog readers stand up.
You don’t like what these people are doing. Neither do I.
You know people like this in real life and so do I.
Actually do something. Which in this case is probably as easy as ignoring comments and bad Photoshops. I mean I’ll worry when a hand reaches out of my screen for me. Until then, I’ll watch my back offline.

——

Now, you might say that me being anonymous here makes it easier for me to laugh at these threats. It might. But if you can’t handle the threats, why aren’t you anonymous? I think that’s a better question.
Re-earn your “net cred.”

Yes, all of us who have tried the online chatting out have heard it. “WTF Mate?”
It comes to mind when something completely absurd or out-there is read.
“WOOT! Passive voice!”
“WTF Mate? You were going to make a point and then went completely off track.”
Get it? No?
Yea…I figured.
Today’s “WTF Mate” goes to a blog called Leaf Counting with an article on why we blog. (Also, it could be an article linking to a new ViolentAcres story in order to get more readers. I’m soooo above that. Ignore the links.)

But, just to answer some of his?/her? questions here are my responses.

Why do we blog?

Sure, some people do it for money. Some people make their living by blogging, but that only accounts for exactly 2.3% of blogs on the internet. (**note**-all statistics are being entirely made up). Money is out.

Next theory: “we do it for ourselves”. Sounds so sweet and cute it makes you want to vomit right? Any blogger who claims this self-righteous bullshit needs to have their genitalia mutilated. If you keep a journal under your mattress and show it to nobody but yourself then you can say that you do it for yourself and I won’t campaign for the destruction of your twig and berries or taco, but the rest of you are full of shit. You post it to the world. You register on Technorati. You look at the view stats. You want people to read.

Answer: Bloggers blog because they secretly wish to be able to walk around naked causing shock and awe and making everybody look. Male bloggers want cocks the size of elephant trunks and want their blog to be the equivalent of walking around giving mushroom tattoos to everyone they see. Female bloggers want their blog to be the equivalent of nakedly running up behind somebody, jumping into the air and landing right on top of their head engulfing it in their vagina. The poor strangers who were just mushroom tattooed and vagina engulfed are left with an expression on their face somewhere between horror and jealousy that someone else got away with doing exactly what they have always wanted to do.

No, I don’t want to be as big as an elephant trunk. How would I find pants that fit? I mean come on. I’m way too skinny to shop at the big & tall stores.

Why do we read?

Ever notice that a little kid has no problem staring at you. We read blogs because as adult, we creep people out when we stare at them in public. We read them because we are born as stalkers, and society trained that out of us.

Mostly though, it is because we are cynical bastards. We are tired of commentary by trained writers, educated sophisticates and people in general that know what they are talking about. When the original Planet of the Apes movie was filmed an interesting social phenomenon occurred. Each species of apes was made up of human being from all races, backgrounds and beliefs, yet when in make up, the “apes” gravitated to their like kinds. The chimpanzees hung out with other chimps at lunch. When we have the ability to choose what we read, we gravitate to the stuff like us. Sarcastic raw uncensored asshole types, tend to read blogs of people similar. Mommybloggers tend to read the blogs of other mommys. That, and secretly we all think it would be funny as shit if some chick came running up to us, launched into the air and suddenly we were looking at the inside of her vagina.

Wait, how in the hell did I end up inside some chick’s…nevermind. I don’t even want to know. Also, just because I’m typing this looking through Leaf Counter’s window doesn’t make me a stalker! I JUST CARE, OK?! I…JUST…CARE!

Why do we comment?

We comment because after the naked woman jumps onto our head, we want to wiggle our way fully in and then flex making her explode like the agents in The Matrix. I apologize for the geek reference, but essentially, we are judgmental assholes who can always either say something better or somehow be more right. Even if we are in complete agreement with the vagina jumper, our comment somehow states it better. The thought of the blog was somehow incomplete without our infinite wisdom and by adding our two cents, THIER blog suddenly becomes our swinging cock and aerial vagina.

Trackbacks and traffic…yea, that’s it really.

Why do we engage in melodrama?

Even the most arrogant sounding, sure of ourselves, pompous, bitchy, opinionated bloggers are insecure. It is easy to blog anonymously. It is easy to spit venom. It’s easy to point out the flaws of others, to mock them, to humiliate them. Hell, it is not only easy, it is entertaining. The infamous Star Wars kid was viewed 387 million times and 96.7% of those views made fun of the kid while they watched. We engage in blog wars for the same reason we made fun of the fat kid of star wars…it makes us feel better about ourselves. Some people make inciting blog drama an art form. Renetto does it on Youtube, V does it on Violent Acres, Simon Cowell does it on American Idol. Don’t take this as a condemnation though. I am all for it. Personally, it was through melodrama that I stumbled upon my favorite blogs.

Drama!? Screw You!
You just upset me by implying that I might engage in drama or enjoy it!
And for the record, it is not easy to spit venom. It’s an acquired skill after years of training. If it’s sooo easy then how come only one guy in Mortal Kombat can do it. huh?

Conclusion:

The blogging world (or club as some crazy bitch referred to it as) is something we do because we can’t walk around society naked and staring.

Just in case you needed reminding as to why this was a “WTF Mate,” here it is. Enjoy.

We live in a country that will never be “smoke free.”
No, I do not smoke. In fact, I have asthma and if somebody is smoking by me my lungs close up really nicely. So I guess that means I have a built in hatred of smoking. Lots of other people seem to hate smoking, too.
I mean why else would people try to have smoking bans?
Slight problem though. Our country was built by the tobacco industry back in colonial days. People say that bug business controls the laws passed in our country. Well, I can’t think of any big business that has been around longer than the smoking one.
This leads us to another point. Why isn’t Marijuana legal? It’s just smoking something different right?
Exactly.
Tobacco can be tricky to grow. Marijuana is growing in one of your neighbor’s backyards right now. How can anyone make money off of it if anyone can grow it?
Money makes the world go round. Don’t believe me?
The War on Terrorism
The War in Iraq
King George’s War
The Haliburton War
Pick a name, they all refer to the same thing.

There. This has been sitting as a draft for awhile now. I think I worded it correctly.
If not, all well.

I didn’t get a whole lot of sleep last night, or the night before last. My class is at 1PM so I took the opportunity to sleep in.BAT! BAT! BAT! BAT! BAT! BAT! BAT! BAT!
I jumped out of bed before I was even awake, ready to take a bat to whatever this loud bugger was.What the hell is that?!
Of course, it was the fire alarm.
Was there an actual fire? no.
Was my life in danger? no.
Is the-guy-whose-idea-it-was-to-have-a-flipping-fire-drill-today’s life in danger? if I ever find him…
So, I had to stumble out of the dormitory…get redirected to the emergency door…The door’s right there!
You have to go back through the stairwell and out through the fire door.
Pfft!
If I’m ever awoken by that alarm again, I’m taking a bat to the speakers and going back to bed.

In the beginning…we had real files…and for a time…it was good.
Then, came BitTorrent. Webmasters no longer needed to host entire files and the amount of space and bandwidth they needed dropped exponentially. Good? No.
Because of BitTorrent Web space and bandwidth prices are still higher than they need to be. Supply and demand. Web space is essentially infinite, so the more people want it, the more money companies make. It’s not competitive for space. Therefore, if more people needed more space the price could go down.
With BitTorrent, we don’t need nearly as much space, so the prices can’t go down nearly as much as they should. Plus, nothing I ever want to download is ever seeded and in the odd chance that it is I still can’t get good speeds.
(Hmm…I had hoped this would be a longer post. *shrug*)
(Notice I reused my “Humbug” category? I no longer regret that V-Day post…as much.)

Ok, so I told you about my back…in fact in writing that very sentence I got a spike of pain. Ow.
Since I have hurt my back every Tom, Sam, Dick, Jon, and Zebadiah with a back injury has found me. You don’t know anybody named Zebadiah? Me either.
All of them seem to be worse off than me, including one guy who has lost feeling in one of his feet and the other is closing in behind. They all think I might be bad off, too. Now, they don’t know because I didn’t have as much of a chance to explain my condition to any of them. That guy who can’t feel his feet told me to get an X-Ray no matter what my doctor said.
Here’s the kicker.
After waiting an hour and a half in the waiting room, I was told that I was young and therefore not prone to spinal injuries. I agree.
I was told to continue taking Moltrin with a slightly higher dose (added a 3 pill). OK.
If that doesn’t work, I have a prescription to go file for stronger stuff. Finally, after a week or so if I don’t feel any better I will get an X-Ray referral or something.
Now, am I meeting these people as a sign saying I need to pursue more information?
Or, are these people thrown my way to as a way to tell me to stop being such a wuss?
Guess, I’ll find out in a week…haha…
(Yes, I have already taken three Moltrin)

I was just reading an article over at Violent Acres’ blog and was thinking about how much I disagree.
I’ve been over the top high twice in my life.
The first time was a bit of a math problem and I overdosed on liquid Tylenol. Yea, I didn’t know it was possible either. I’m the guy who takes three times the amount of Novocaine at the dentist’s office, but I overdosed on liquid Tylenol. Go figure…
Anyways, it turned out to be the best Algebra II class ever….ever….
The second time was when I figured out I was allergic to Alleve. Yea, my arm swelled up and went numb and I was high as a kite.
Woooooooo…..
Now, I’m in my bed. I’m on Moltrin. I hurt my back at work helping with a one hundred plus pound file cabinet. These pills suck. I still feel pain and I get really hot from them. …does a number on my stomach…
Take two and hurt like hell in the morning…

Maybe I just need stronger stuff….
(I blame the pills for my overuse and abuse of ellipses.)

On Sunday, an article was posted on digg about a video game sale.
In the comments many people doubted the validity of such a sale (even though it happens annually) and commented on reasons on why they did not get the sale prices. Then, some had the audacity to criticize people who tried to profit off of this occasion, people like me.
First, just because the clerks didn’t all know about the sale doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist! Second, fight for it!
I recall a comment saying that they didn’t want to cite the Internet as a sale. Tough luck.
I saw many people scouring the racks for these games all looking at a list they got from who knows what Web site. Then, some of us had to convince the cashiers that we weren’t crazy.
In the end, those of us who fought for it…profited.
Don’t criticize me for your lack of drive. I profited. I admit it.
I am bargain hunter and I won’t back down.
I also work retail. I have dealt with people like me and people who don’t even know what’s on sale.
I don’t remember everything on sale at my store, so if they don’t get a sale item, it’s their fault. You have to work to save money and profit.
Don’t want to? Have fun with life!

So a few days ago I tried to play Tetris Worlds on the Xbox 360. It wasn’t supported.
A day later I tried Unreal Championship 2. Again, it didn’t work.
Today, I tried Marvel Ultimate Alliance.
Can you guess what the outcome was???
Honestly, they might as well come out and say “XBOX 360! Backwards compatible with Halo 2!”